Too Late to Buy Health Insurance in 2014 for Most, Thanks to ObamaCare

The implementation of the new healthcare law has produced a number of unpleasant surprises for those who ignored warnings by ObamaCare critics, including increased costs, less choice, and in many cases, the loss of their current health plans and physicians.

Adding to this list is the latest development: Consumers — including those outside the healthcare exchanges — will be unable to purchase health insurance from now until the next enrollment period, which begins January 1, 2015.

John Divito, president of Flexbenefit, states, “It’s all closed down. You cannot buy a policy that is a qualified policy for the purpose of the ACA (Affordable Care Act) until next year on January 1.”

According to Fox News, this requirement will leave tens of millions of people out of the health insurance market for the rest of the year, with only a few exceptions, such as qualifying events that include marriage, divorce, the birth of a child, or loss of employment.

“Only about one in four subsidy-eligible people signed up for health insurance," reports Robert Laszewski of Health Policy Associates. "That means about 13 million subsidy-eligible people have not yet signed up for health insurance."

John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis notes the irony:

People are not going to be able to buy individual and family policies, and that's part of ObamaCare. And what makes it so surprising is the whole point of ObamaCare was to encourage people to get insurance, and now the market has been completely closed down for the next seven months.

It’s worth mentioning that this is no accident, of course, since those who are without health insurance will have to pay a government penalty, or “tax” as determined by the U.S. Supreme Court in perhaps one of the most blatant examples of disregard for the Constitution seen in that court to date.

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